Required Reading: Living Life Beautifully

Christina Strutt, co-founder of the English housewares and fashion line Cabbages and Roses, is an advocate for beauty, simplicity, timelessness, integrity, and sustainability. Her just-published book Living Life Beautifully presents a collection of friends' houses that are all about creating harmonious spaces where life and work mingle. A common theme of aesthetic utility runs throughout the pages, feeding our own fantasies of a life filled with well-organized closets and freshly laundered (and folded) linens. "All I ever really wanted was to create something built not just around an idea, but a real life," Strutt says. Have a look at some examples from the book in which order and clean laundry coincide.
Photography by Simon Brown , unless otherwise noted.
Above: Hooks on a wall and open shelves mean a corner of any room can be turned into a linen cupboard or closet. A wooden clothes drying rack can also be used as a casual clothing rack. See 10 Easy Pieces: Freestanding Wooden Clothing Racks for 10 of our favorites.
Above: At Brook Cottage, Strutt's country home near Bath, a treehouse that was built for her children 20 years ago, became a place of work for her (and received a coat of white paint). It's currently used as a place of repose and a small shelf with hooks holds the necessities for the occasional cup of tea.
Above: In the her Wiltshire cottage, Maureen Doherty—founder of Egg in Knightsbridge , one of our favorite places to browse and shop in London—hangs her laundry to dry in her favorite room, the one where her grandsons stay when they come to visit.
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Above: Strutt turns the concept of a linen closet into a vehicle for display in her Cabbages and Roses shop in Chelsea.
Above: Hooks transform stairs into a place for easy and accessible storage.
Above: Strutt's design assistant, Violet Buchanan, moved vintage shelves from the Cabbages and Roses shop into her own home, giving them a new function as a shoe rack.
Above: Living Life Beautifully by Christina Strutt, photographed by Simon Brown , is published by Ryland Peters and Small; $28.91. The book is available in the UK through Amazon ; £25. Photograph by Christine Chang Hanway.
Longing for an orderly laundry setup? Have a look at Julie's lineup of Laundry Room Essentials . And on Gardenista, a DIY Instant Tool Shed can help you organize your outdoor life. Go to Required Reading for more of our favorite books—and don't miss Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home !